Do you agree with me? Could you say amen?
You guys can collect the offering.
Children, you may be dismissed.
As they're collecting the offering,
and the children are being dismissed,
I have the great honor.
And I truly do say it. I have the great honor.
I felt like we've known each other...
Honestly, I'll say it.
I felt like we've known each other forever.
And I walk into the office
and there sits this young gal with a yellow suitcase.
And I'm like, man, she's got to be Slavic.
Do you know why?
Because Slavic people know how to dress.
Is there any Slavic roots in you?
I'm sure there are.
Somewhere? Because you're very well-dressed.
And I'm like, there's got to be.
Maybe great-great-great-grandfather
was probably a Russian.
And he probably drove a black Mercedes
in a suit and everything.
Man, that's why it's a kindred-like spirit.
So, Jennifer, it is an honor.
Can I have you come up here, please?
Can we give Jennifer a round of applause and honor her?
Thank you.
Please.
We are honored to have you here.
I am honored to have you here.
And excited to hear what God is going to do
through you, in you,
and for us here and for him.
So, please.
Amen. Thank you so much.
It is an honor
to be here.
And I know what you're talking about.
I think I feel like a kindred spirit
with this house.
You know, definitely
Pastor Mary and I are best friends,
you know, and
I'm kidding to know the rest, but
some of you I know, some of you I don't know.
It's a pleasure, honestly, to be here.
It really is.
And I'm honored to be up here.
And I am excited
to reveal Jesus to you tonight.
Hallelujah.
Because I'm nothing.
I mean, nothing.
I mean, I'm nothing.
And you
so confirmed even what I'm talking about.
So, I wasn't going to say anything,
but I'm going to say a few things.
First of all, when we were in worship,
in between me exalting the king,
I saw
an arm and there was a heavy scab
on it. And I saw a finger
and the individual
kept picking the scab.
And this is several of you in here.
And the Lord says to you tonight
that part of the reason that you're
not getting free is you keep
self-picking.
You're more focused on you than you are
on Jesus.
And your freedom lies in gazing
at Him, not in what's wrong
with you.
There are also some tonight.
Can I tell you this in love?
I'm going to be slightly nicer than
Prophet Brian was last night.
I listened to the first part
before I had to go take a call.
I listened to him. I said,
well praise God. He plowed it for me.
So anything
I say can't be worse than
Him, yeah?
I mean, he called y'all lazy. You know that, right?
I hope you didn't leave in a spirit of
offense.
It's good.
You know what? Truth
and love heals us.
And if there's
one thing that we want to apologize
to the American church for
is making it about
us instead of Him.
We've made it way too much about us,
our feelings,
our feeling good about us,
our gifting, us, us, us,
us, us, us.
Because it's not us, it's Him. Amen?
He heals us,
not to leave us focused on us.
So we can go, okay, I'm good now.
Now let me focus on you.
There are some in the room tonight.
I'm not even going to look at you. See what I'm doing?
Because I'm so nice.
But I'm telling you,
there is some stubbornness and rebellion
in here, okay?
There are some who will not
want to enter into worship.
You're mad.
You got some past hurt stuff that needs
to be healed. You don't understand.
And you might even find yourself irritated
the whole year it gets.
And the Lord wants to deliver you tonight.
Don't feel judged by what I'm saying.
I used to be that. I remember
when I was a first,
not a first believer, that didn't even make any sense.
I'd been saved about five years
and all my demons weren't out yet.
And I remember the church
I was going to had very
incredible prophetic worship.
And it would
tick me off every week.
It would be in the middle of worship
and I'd feel this anger begin to come.
I mean a man I was ticked
and I would have to go to the ladies room
and every time the Lord
would apprehend me
and he would say go back.
Now I'm telling you
if I had not obeyed him
I would have delayed my own deliverance
and my own growth in Jesus Christ.
But if there's one thing I did
sloppily, but I did it
it was when I knew he spoke
I did what he said.
Come on somebody. I did
what he said.
If you were in his
presence like you could see him
face to face your heart would be
broken.
You would be on the
floor. You would be
soaking the carpet because
your heart would be broken
because you would be in the presence
of the one who sacrificed
everything for
you.
The answer
to stubbornness
and rebellion is surrender.
When
he talked about reputation
in that little bit about losing
sight of a reputation I went okay
fine.
So my daughter calls me this morning
so I'm getting ready.
She says mom, man
somebody put some scathing stuff about
you and the church up.
And I said honey I
and she began to tell me it was good
I mean they were
it was vitriol like
I have not heard in some time
it was some bona
fide hatred amen
I mean they just tore me
up any way they could.
They said they needed special trauma
counseling from coming to the church
I know who they are and actually I needed the
trauma counseling but they said
and then they said in order to hurt
me they said and
she's anti LGBTQ
yes
I'm not anti the people
when I help them because I was a lesbian
but I'm anti the agenda
hallelujah yes if you really want to hurt me
you're gonna have to try something else amen
but I went through
what I went through because I've been in the season
of persecution heavily
for not like in other
countries okay I would
no this isn't life or death
it's mental warfare it jacks
with your head and that's pretty good amen
but that's been going
on for the last year it's just been
It's a non-stop, and it's a new level of... who really cares?
Okay, hate on me, yo.
Say I suck. Okay, fine, whatever.
Say whatever you want. Does it really matter?
So I was talking to the Lord because I was going to get my hair done.
Because I knew he'd be looking.
Measuring up my outfit, see if I look Russian enough.
So while I'm on my way to the hairdresser,
I'm talking to Jesus.
And I said, Jesus, you know.
And I began to tell him.
I said, Father Jesus, Holy Spirit,
because I have a relationship with all three.
I said, praise God that there's something I'm doing
that's worthy of persecution.
Thank God there's something I'm standing for,
something I'm saying that is so provoking darkness
that they got a hate on me in public.
Listen, we have a public thread on Facebook up there
that I can't stand because it's so carnal and nasty.
Every time somebody anonymous asks for a good church,
there are people who have been so blessed in touch
they always want to mention us.
And it always draws attention.
And I'm like, please don't mention us.
I believe in the Holy Spirit's ability to guide people
if they need to come.
Leave me alone.
But it's not about us and it really doesn't matter.
So I want you to know and be okay with me
that by the time I was done, I was laughing.
I was laughing and I was blessing them
and I was thanking them for adding to my reward in heaven.
Blessed are those who are persecuted
for what kind of sake?
For righteousness sake.
It's not about perfection.
It is about remaining in Christ, amen?
Hallelujah.
So if I can do it...
Now, I want to apologize for you
the fact that we have to talk about the Laodicean church
because we should never even have to talk about it.
True.
Shouldn't have to be in the Bible.
Shouldn't have to be anything we look at
or talk about or study,
but the Lord knew what it was going to look like
towards the end.
Now, I don't know about y'all,
but I believe we are in that.
We've been in the end since Jesus resurrected,
but I believe we are at the end of the end.
In fact, I believe that we are right there
at the end of the church age
crossing over into the millennium.
You might disagree.
I love you anyway, amen?
But that's where I believe we are right now.
I also believe that we have entered the time
of righteous rule in this country
and even in the church.
I believe that God has been taking down
those who are unrighteous and unholy
and been living in darkness and habitual
secret sin, and he is now beginning
to position those who really
make it all about Jesus.
And they don't care where they're positioned
because it doesn't matter.
It's just all about Jesus, amen?
Okay, I want to cite right now.
Who knows the great late Dr. Chuck Missler?
Anybody know him?
What? This is a charismatic church.
Come on, just if you don't be a frayed girlfriend,
you know him, raise your hand.
Okay, well, Dr. Chuck Missler
has passed on into glory,
and it's not that I agreed with everything,
but he was an awesome man of God.
And man, was he a good Bible teacher.
And the way he used to talk about the seven letters,
I know we're on the church of Leah to see it tonight,
but the way he used to talk about the seven letters
to the churches, as he said, it's interesting
because God designed it.
So on one hand, from the time
of the resurrection of Christ, come on,
to the time where, and now,
you can take all seven and lay them across history
and see in succession
different attributes of those churches
in a linear fashion at the same time,
because God is amazing,
you could see any of the seven
at any time in different places in the world.
Come on, somebody.
I was talking to my son and loved the other day,
and I said, you know what?
It is impossible that a man
wrote the Bible.
It's impossible.
And if you're a skeptic on that,
then I challenge you to go start in Genesis,
make your way through to Revelation,
look at the prophecy that's been fulfilled,
look at the layers of mystery
and understanding in Revelation,
and you will be humbly repenting by the end, amen?
A man could not have written this Bible,
but there's inconsistencies.
No, there's not.
What you think is an inconsistency
is different views on the same thing,
seeing it from different angles.
My life, come on, somebody,
my life is staked, right here.
This is where my life is staked, right here.
Right here.
Let's go into the word.
So when I was listening to brother Brian,
who's one of my best friends,
next to Mary,
we were talking a little bit yesterday
before he came and then, like I said,
I got to hear what he said.
And when I heard how it came out,
I started laughing because I thought,
gee, that really, it kind of sets the tone
for where the Lord was having me start, okay?
And my...
he remember when he said he was starting
talking about leadership and building,
like he can't help but talk and start there?
Which is true, that's totally him.
It's me, too, actually.
But he started talking about leadership
and how we don't understand leadership
and all that, and he is so right.
Because there's such a strong independent spirit
in the church.
Nobody here likes to be told what to do.
And if you don't like to be told what to do,
you will not be told what to do.
The Holy Spirit will give intel
to anybody who wants to hear it.
He will lead you, he will guide you,
he will show you the way.
But if you don't want to hear it,
he'll just sit there quietly and wait.
Faith, come on.
Faith is about
following.
You don't need faith if you're the one driving.
You need faith to follow.
Many of us start off in faith
because we don't know what we're doing.
And then as my husband says,
we get just a little bit of Christianity.
He says, just a little bit of karate will get you killed.
You know two moves, and you're like,
what?
Because you never passed that elementary class, amen?
Same thing with Christianity, yo.
We can get to the place where I've been a Christian
for 15 years.
I know.
No, you don't.
You're about to find out, too.
Because the moment you exalt yourself,
you go on a face plant down.
That's what's going to happen.
This is the absolute truth.
Faith is to follow.
It takes faith to follow.
The whole purpose of faith is that you can follow.
Because who's leading, y'all?
Jesus, Holy Ghost.
Even you can say father, too.
I tell you what, if any of the three speak,
I'm just going to do it, amen? Fair enough?
So you're all right.
We need faith in order to follow.
And why am I bringing this up?
Because we're talking about the church of Laodicea.
And Laodicea means the rule of the people.
The rule of the people.
All right?
So as soon as you start talking about the rule of the people,
you have got different attributes of humanism.
You're back at Genesis 3.
You're back. Did God really say?
Are you sure God said that?
See, when we begin to think for ourselves,
pretty soon we end up worshiping ourselves.
And this is where the church of Laodicea came to.
We should not be having this discussion.
We shouldn't have to talk about it.
Because when you've met him...
Why on earth would you ever go back?
I'm not staying on my testimony,
because many of you have heard it.
But I'm going to tell you one thing.
This little girl, sex addict, alcoholic,
addict, depressed, clinically, blah, blah, blah, blah.
The day that I got saved.
I mean, I got saved.
The day I said yes to Jesus Christ,
I had one thought go through my head.
The first one was, whoa.
Because I literally felt the weight of my sin lift off.
I felt that you don't need something like that
in your salvation.
But the Lord knows what we all need in that moment.
And I was about to go into a seriously dark environment,
and he knew I needed something to look back to.
But anyway, whatever.
So it... I feel it go.
And then I had this thought.
I said, I don't deserve this.
Which is true.
I said, other people deserve it.
Which is not true.
But who knows my theology wasn't correct yet.
But the one thing I knew in that moment
that has kept me tethered
to the one who died and rose for me.
Is that I did not.
And I do not deserve it.
Humility is something you never want to lose sight of.
I don't know how long I've been a believer now.
Like 26 years or something.
I don't know.
Thank you for calling me young.
That really stood out to me, and I was blessed.
But a believer for 26 years or whatever.
And I've been discipled.
And yes, I lead a church.
And I do all this.
And now that I know so much about the Word.
I mean, my Bible is so marked up
because I read so much and I know so much.
And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I know nothing.
I have nothing outside of Christ.
And if I didn't really believe that,
ask me how fast I would set the church on fire
and be out and work someplace
where it's not constant warfare and hammering.
For real, I would love just to raise dogs.
I mean, if I could do something else,
I would have one of every breed
and spend time with each and every one of them all day.
Haley knows.
But this is about Christ.
And here I am 26 years away.
Well, yeah, kind of.
And I still don't deserve it.
It was His gift for me.
Never lose sight of the greatest gift
you will ever have.
It's not your spouse.
It's not your children.
Y'all, it ain't your health.
I don't care if you were laid up
with casts on mental illness all jacked up.
If you know Jesus Christ and you die,
you go to be with Him.
Don't ever forget the greatest thing that you have.
And your possession is faith in Christ.
They forgot in the church of Lea to see it.
That's a problem.
They forgot.
Y'all, okay, I'm not mad.
I get passionate.
I'm really nice.
Let's read the word.
Revelation chapter 3 verse 14.
Into the angel of the church
of the Laodiceans, right.
These things says the amen.
The faithful and true witness.
The beginning of the creation of God.
I know your works that you were neither cold nor hot.
I could wish you were cold or hot.
So then because you were lukewarm
and neither cold nor hot,
I will vomit you out of my mouth.
Is that what your Bible says?
Who wants to take the first stab
at twisting the scripture for us?
Make it a little softer.
Maybe he just meant dribble you out of his mouth.
Y'all okay?
The healthiest thing in the world
is to read the Bible for exactly what it says.
And compare scripture to scripture,
not your opinion, not your fear.
It's okay because he's got you.
But let's be honest, y'all.
17.
Because you say I am rich
and have become wealthy
and have need of nothing
and do not know that you are wretched,
miserable, poor, blind and naked,
I counsel you to buy from me gold
refined in the fire
that you may be rich
and white garments that you may be clothed,
that the shame of your nakedness
may not be revealed
and anoint your eyes
with eye-solve that you may see
as many as I love, I rebuke and chase sin.
I'm not going to name names,
but if you're in a church that never talks about sin,
that's hate.
That's hate, man.
Love tells the truth,
so you at least have a choice.
As many as I love, I rebuke and I chase sin.
Therefore, be zealous and repent.
He's like, quit playing, let's go.
Come on now.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock.
If anyone hears my voice
and opens the door, I will come into him
and dine with him and he with me.
To him who overcomes,
I will grant to sit with me on my throne
as I also overcame
and sat down with my father on his throne.
He who has an ear,
let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
So now let's just go back
and break it down a little bit, amen?
One of my favorite things to do
is operate in the gift of prophetic teacher.
It's one of my favorite things
because the word of God is life.
And the Holy Spirit,
before I read the Bible, I say,
Holy Spirit, show me the things I don't know.
Help me to understand Jesus.
Help me to understand the living word of God.
And he does, he's faithful.
And when I get done,
even the live Bible studies I do,
I promise you, Hailey is my camera person.
How many times when we're done,
do I go, man, the Holy Spirit's amazing?
That was incredible. I didn't even know that.
He just spoke in the middle.
He is right there with us.
Oh my goodness, we miss out on so much
because we forget about our very best friend,
the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit?
He'll remind you to pay your bills?
He does me?
The Holy Spirit literally cares
about every single thing in your life.
Can I say something too?
Because a lot of y'all are nodding your heads
and I appreciate that.
It's better to nod this way than...
We know that, but we don't know that.
We know it, but we don't know it
because if we know it, we access it.
Does that make sense?
Can I challenge you tonight
to not just knowing, but take the time
and know him, talk to him,
wait for him to speak,
develop a new discipline
of you and Holy Ghost every day?
Oh, he's so faithful.
Let's go back to the beginning.
In the angel of the church of the Laodiceans,
to the angel of the church.
So each one of the letters,
in case you don't know this,
when we're talking about the seven letters,
each one of them gives an introduction
and it introduces them
according to some good things they've done
and then some things that aren't so good.
There's only two churches out of the seven
that did not have a correction.
And if I could pick any church,
I want to be the church of Philadelphia.
If you don't know why, go read it.
That's the Holy Ghost, amen.
But everybody else, there is some good things
and then not so good things.
Actually, in a couple, there's nothing good.
These guys don't have anything good.
And then Jesus is introduced,
but it's certain aspects of Jesus.
So Jesus introduces himself
according to the aspects of him
that they need to become aware of the most.
Does that make sense?
I can tell you as somebody who preaches
almost every week of the year
that I can give one message
and people will all hear it very differently
because it's heard according to
what their level of revelation is
and what God is also speaking to them
and what they need to know.
It's personal, amen?
Okay.
And I want to challenge us tonight
because hopefully we don't find ourselves
in this letter,
but let's assume we're in the letter.
Let's assume that we need some work done.
There's nothing wrong with that.
Well, that seems super negative.
No, you're assuming that you need some work done.
I don't know about you, but I have not arrived.
I have not arrived.
I was sitting there the night
just repenting and repenting and repenting.
Yeah, my son-in-love knows.
I just...
I felt like I had gotten into this place
and I came off wrong
and I sounded so self-righteous.
I mean, I'm just sobbing in the bathtub.
Jesus, I'm so sorry.
Because I'm sensitive to him.
And when I begin to pick up what's not him,
it bothers me.
My heart's broken
because I want to display his character, amen?
Yeah, and I screw up.
Do y'all?
You don't need to.
And hopefully I'll quit.
Okay, so the angel of the church
of the Laodiceans, right?
These things says the amen.
You know what amen means?
It means, so be it.
Just imagine you're getting a letter from Jesus.
And it says this.
It says, these things says the...
Amen.
These things says the so be it.
What?
These things...
What he's saying is, it's already in motion.
This is it maybe.
This is already in motion.
So be it.
Did you know that Jesus doesn't say something
until the decision has already been made?
You know why it's the amen?
Because God has already ruled on
what they're dealing with.
So be it.
Come on somebody.
They're not waiting on trial.
The trial already happened.
So be it.
Isn't this getting exciting?
Makes the word fun.
These things says the amen.
The faithful and true witness.
The beginning of the creation of God.
What is Jesus wanting them to know?
He's saying, first of all, I'm faithful.
I've never changed.
Nothing has changed.
I'm having to point out that I'm faithful
because you're not.
I'm faithful.
You're not faithful, but know that I am faithful.
I have not changed.
So any changing, it's going to be in my direction.
Y'all with me?
Can you feel the holiness on this?
I don't know about you, but I start reading that letter.
I'd be like, yes, sir.
My ears would grow.
My mouth would shrink.
The faithful and what?
True witness. Come on.
The one who came, why did Jesus come?
I was on it with my church this last year.
What are the reasons that Jesus came?
We're going to say, he came to save us.
Well, yes, but that's not what he said.
He said, I came to witness to the truth
and to destroy the what?
What are the works of darkness?
They lies.
I came to witness to the truth
and destroy the works of darkness.
So right now we know he's saying, so be it.
It's in motion, but know this.
I am faithful and I'm the true witness.
I'm the one who's seen the Father.
I'm the one who lived as a man
and ascended back up into heaven.
I'm the true witness.
There's no comparison.
Nobody can compete with what I have seen
and what I know.
He's trustworthy.
That's what he's saying.
The beginning of the creation of God.
Why would he be saying that?
He's saying, you think you know something.
But I want to remind you that I have been there
since the very beginning.
Yeah?
So like this precious individual
who's shouting at me online,
tell me I'm anti-LGBT, blah, blah, blah.
You know why I'm anti that?
Because it ain't God.
It's never been God.
It's never gonna be God.
And since I've been delivered to that devil,
I will never believe it's God.
I don't believe I was born that way.
I don't believe you were born that way.
It's called perversion.
And you can be delivered.
It's not psychology.
Maybe if I think hard enough, I'll be straight.
Can I tell you something?
Your image in Christ is as heterosexual as it comes.
It's about coming into the image.
This is what it comes down to, amen?
So Jesus is saying, you've tried to twist it.
You've tried to make this okay.
You've brought your philosophy and your human wisdom
into the church.
You've brought a perversion.
You've brought a skewed image.
And you quit upholding my witness,
my word, as the number one.
And you begin to twist it and create your own design.
So let me just remind you, he's telling me,
I have been there since the beginning.
Now, if you know the Bible, you know that Jesus created
everything with the Holy Spirit.
Talks about the Godhead in Genesis, amen?
Let's keep going.
I know your works that you are neither cold nor hot.
I wish you were cold or hot.
So then because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot,
I will vomit you out of my mouth.
Now, there have been a lot of discussion
about what is it to be hot or cold.
And the truth is, if you go study this out,
that very church, there really was water that ran by
that they would draw from that was lukewarm.
It started off a certain way.
I can't even remember now if it was hot or cold,
but way up, you know, head stream.
But by the time it got to them, it was lukewarm.
The Lord will speak to us using natural things, amen?
But when we say hot or cold,
don't get focused on hot or cold.
What he's saying is, you are indifferent.
There's a little bit of that in the room tonight.
You're indifferent.
I go with it.
Maybe not go with it.
I don't really care.
Have you ever met somebody like that?
Where would you like to go eat?
I don't know.
I don't care.
You don't ever care.
Could you care tonight?
I don't care.
Do you ever have a thought or opinion?
Do you have a desire?
Are you alive?
Indifference is sort of annoying.
Switzerland.
Over in your neck of the woods, sir.
Switzerland.
A little bit of annoyance there.
We don't want to get involved.
Okay, so you stand for nothing.
Is that what you're saying?
Indifference is disgusting to God.
It's disgusting.
Because it means you don't believe.
If you are indifferent, you are in unbelief.
You are in doubt.
You don't believe him.
You doubt him.
What is unbelief?
Unbelief is the greatest sin any of us could find ourselves in.
Because unbelief quits walking in faith for one
and quits accessing God.
Unbelief is a threat to us.
We're going to end up on this note.
I got a powerful illustration for you.
It made me cry.
Maybe it will make you cry.
But they are indifferent to Jesus.
This is a church.
Y'all remember this is a church.
Imagine this church was not going to happen.
But imagine all of a sudden
the pastors get a letter from Jesus.
He's like, y'all don't even care anymore.
It's like, church again.
Gotta show up again.
Oh, please excuse us.
Please excuse us for upholding the word that says
come and assemble yourselves together.
Please, so sorry.
So sorry for being faithful every week,
preaching every week,
having all kinds of things we can do,
trying to draw the body of...
So sorry.
You see what I'm talking about?
Indifference.
The fire's out, y'all.
These guys are in so much trouble.
Literally you should read this letter like this.
It's breathtaking.
Because Jesus is saying this.
He's saying, you're indifferent.
I'm about to spit you out of my mouth.
I remember when I was a very young believer
and I was visiting a church years ago.
And I was in worship and I'm a seer.
So I'm in worship and all of a sudden
I get this image.
And I went, it startled me.
And I was standing there.
It's like I could see through.
And I saw the side of Jesus' face.
And I saw people on his tongue.
And he was about to spit them out.
I wasn't even familiar.
I wouldn't even study in the world all that much.
It scared me.
I'm like, what in the world does that mean?
Jesus loves us.
But when we get to a place where we're self-dilusional,
like God's cool with whatever XYZ,
he's going to come strong in order to save us.
He's not saying all this stuff because he's a jerk.
How are we doing with the actual truth?
Y'all okay?
Should I stop and tell you much God loves you for five minutes?
No.
He does.
That's equally true, yo.
Or he wouldn't be writing this letter.
I'm not even saying y'all are the church of Laodicea,
but we always want to read and say,
Lord, examine me, sir.
In fact, let me examine me.
Usually we like to give ourselves the best grade.
Hopefully it is good.
Okay, keep going.
He says, I will vomit you out of my mouth
because you say I am what?
Rich have become wealthy
and have what?
I no longer need you, Jesus.
It's the scariest thing I can imagine.
I've used you to get to where I am.
I don't need you anymore.
I know as much about you as I could know
or would need to know.
I'm good.
I'm wealthy now, I'm rich.
I don't even have to exercise faith
because anything I want is already available to me.
There's nothing wrong with being rich, y'all.
It's not money, it's not riches.
It's when you begin to see them as your source
and your provision,
and you don't need Jesus.
We need to understand you don't need Jesus
to pay your bills.
You need Jesus because your soul needs saving.
We've lost sight of that.
We don't understand eternities like for real.
It's like eternity.
Right?
Yeah.
In forever's, you're correct, whoever said that there.
Correct about forever,
but forever seems too brief to be forever.
You know what I'm saying?
It's like a word that's kind of finite.
And just infinite in our soul,
our mind, will and emotions
have to have a destination
because nothing actually breaks down in the spirit.
Nothing actually breaks down.
The truth is, everything continues on in some form.
That's right.
Everything.
What am I trying to get at tonight?
We want to prize our faith.
We want to prize the condition.
Come on, somebody.
The condition of our soul
more than all of the other things
that have to do in this world.
There's not a day we wake up
that we should not say,
my soul has been saved.
I thank you, Jesus.
I thank you that I get to know you.
I don't have to run around and do a special dance.
I don't have to build an altar and kill something.
I get to know you.
I get to talk to you whenever I want.
I don't have to go to the church.
You know, we can get so religious.
I've had people say they feel like
they can't talk to God unless they go to a church.
A church is a building.
The ecclesia is the church.
We're the body of Christ.
You can talk to him anytime.
I talk to him most of the time
while I'm doing dishes
and just mundane household things.
I'm consulting him, listening to him.
It's a relationship, amen.
And he's got my soul.
And I love him more than anybody,
including you, including my husband,
including my children, including the church,
including my dogs.
I love Jesus the very most.
And I'm not saying that I mean that.
I mean that.
Because he's my prize.
Clearly there's steam coming off my head.
I'm at a certain age where steam comes off at times.
Some of you ladies know.
Some of y'all don't know yet,
but we can pray for you.
You can speed it up.
What do you think, Pastor Mary?
You have need of nothing
and you don't know that your wretched,
miserable, poor, blind and naked.
What is he saying there?
He's saying that you are no longer in me.
You've stepped outside of me.
You know how Paul, the apostle, my favorite apostle,
he says things like, you got to put on Christ?
What is he saying?
He's like, come back into him.
If I'm going through a special warfare or whatever,
I love to visually picture myself
standing inside of Christ.
That I'm in him, literally.
That's how I like to picture it.
I'm like, man, you're my defender.
You're my warrior. You're my king.
You're my protector. You're my provider.
Hallelujah!
You're my victor.
And I hide in him.
I've been singing for days.
I need thee, oh, I need thee.
Every hour I need thee.
How does it go?
My one defense, your righteousness.
I got that off tune.
But who cares?
Oh, Lord, how I need thee.
What?
My defense is his righteousness.
Come on.
I need him.
Oh, I need him.
Every hour I need him.
I love needing him.
I love being helpless.
I don't want to be strong.
I want to be weak.
So his strength is perfected in my life.
I don't need to know everything.
I don't have to solve all your problems.
I'm not trying to be the answer.
He is relish in it.
Yeah.
Are y'all okay?
Am I going too long?
You okay?
Okay.
So, he says this,
I counsel you to buy from me
gold refined in the fire
that you may be rich
and white garments that you may be clothed
that the shame of your nakedness
may not be revealed
and that your eyes...
I'm anoint your eyes with eye salve
that you may see.
What is he actually talking about?
We're going to go over there in a second,
but the Lord brought me the parallel
of 1 Corinthians chapter 3.
So he's saying,
I counsel you.
You really screwed it up, y'all,
but I'm giving you the wisdom you need.
Yay!
He doesn't just come and say,
hey, you're going to hell.
He says, here's the issue
and here's what I'm prepared to do
and here's what can happen.
That's fair, isn't it?
Amen. Great attitude.
So he says, I counsel you
buy from me gold refined in the fire.
In other words,
truth,
understanding,
revelation,
and wisdom.
It's already been refined because it's his.
It's already been tested.
You know, Jesus passed the test, right?
He passed the test.
And it's not because he didn't go get drunk at the bar.
It's not because he didn't sleep around.
All that stuff is not the bigger issue.
That's the manifestation of the real issue,
which is offense in our hearts.
Yeah, that's good.
First sin after Adam and Eve.
Cain and Abel.
And the Lord warned him.
He warned Cain. He said, you better be careful.
Because sin is crouching at your door
and its desire is for you.
That word there in the Hebrew is sin.
It's offense, excuse me. It's offense.
Offense is your enemy.
Offense with God, offense with yourself,
offense with everybody else.
Offense brings a separation.
Amen.
So we need to come back into the place
where we receive his counsel,
his word, his understanding.
Just believe him.
If you don't understand something, that's okay.
Ask him questions. Get in the word
and believe the word.
If the Lord said that Jonah was swallowed by a fish,
he was swallowed by a fish.
If the Lord says,
locusts are going to be crawling around,
and I don't plan to be here,
but he says locusts are going to be crawling around
and they have ugly little...
they have stingers and ugly horse faces
and, you know, heinous little things.
Y'all, what's going to happen?
That's right.
Well, it's a helicopter.
I don't doubt there'll be helicopters there,
but I think there's going to be a bug.
Look, we're so earthly minded.
We don't understand the thing of the heavenlies.
You do know he's got creatures around his throne
like covered in eyes and stuff, right?
If you read your Bible,
you'll be like, what? This is a sci-fi show for real.
Believe the Word.
Quit allowing humanism in this stinking culture
to pick apart the powerful,
life-giving truth of the Word of God.
Do not be ashamed of this gospel.
Amen indeed.
Let's go over, y'all, to 1 Corinthians chapter 3.
I'm hearing a song right now.
Oh, here it goes. I'm going to sing it.
It's not going to be cute, but I'm going to sing it.
Set a fire down in my soul
that I can't contain, that I can't control.
I want more of you, God.
I'm feeling that right now.
You feeling it?
So, this is a scary one, but it's so good.
Y'all okay? Just know Jesus loves you.
He's got you.
He loves you and he's got you,
but y'all know he ain't playing.
He ain't playing, y'all.
He came as a lion. He's coming back,
roaring like a lion.
Amen? And he's given us all the answers
to the test now.
If you want to be healthy,
read the Word of God through the lens of eternity.
This is how I do.
I go all the way to the end, what the expectation is,
and then I backwards engineer it.
What would that look like in order to end up there?
See how that works? Oh, it works.
It's really, really good.
So when I read this, I'm like,
okay, I don't want to get to the place where I don't need him.
Maybe I should incorporate something like telling him daily,
oh man, I need you, God.
And that's what I do. I'm being serious.
If you come up here and read my journal, don't look at it.
But if you were, I've got the date.
And then it's always a variety of good morning,
my wonderful, amazing, holy, faithful, kind, generous.
Good, good, good.
Father, Lord Jesus Christ and Holy Spirit,
I love you. I adore you. I need you.
I require you.
This is how I do with him every day.
Because it's the truth.
It's the truth. It's what I need to know.
I'm never outgrowing, okay? Amen, amen, amen.
Okay, three.
So let me give you the background,
because I don't want to have to start at the very beginning,
but essentially Paul is irritated, which happened a lot.
And he's irritated because the people are getting cornered
and they're like, well, I was baptized by Apollos.
Who are you baptized by?
I was baptized by Paul.
Well, I don't know.
And it's so stupid.
I mean, like, are you offended with me?
It's like, in a good way.
It's stupid. The stupid, stupid things we do.
So Paul, he doesn't like this.
Let's start in verse five.
Who then is Paul?
And who is Apollos but ministers through whom you believed
as the Lord gave to each one?
I planted Apollos watered,
but God gave the increase.
Y'all see that? Who gave the increase?
I think the church of Laodicea missed that.
Pretty sure they took credit for the increase.
So then neither he who plants is anything,
nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.
We don't like that text in America.
You're not anything.
Somebody told me I'm a prophet to the nations.
You're nothing.
I'm going to steal from what's his name, Kevin Leal.
He says, if what I say offends you,
he says, no, if you, how does he say it?
Whatever offends you reveals you.
It's true.
So if I'm saying something, it's pricking you.
Let me tell you what happened.
Somewhere, you're precious, okay?
I'm not being mean, but somewhere your identity
and your value got attached to what you do
instead of who you are in him.
So if we start getting uncomfortable
when those kind of things come up,
it means we need it and we want to transfer that
to no, no, I don't need that.
I need him.
You with me?
It's true.
And you know what, everybody has to go through that.
I had to go through it.
I had to die to ego and all that stuff.
Quick, funny story, lighten it up
since some of y'all are too serious,
but years ago I was in a meeting
and I had just heard this great word
about what I was going to do and preaching and whatnot.
And so I was fantasizing about what I was going to wear.
Oh, yeah.
And at the tie, oh, yeah, it's my Russian roots.
It's my Russian roots.
But I was fantasizing about what I would wear
and at the time I had a role model
and I'm not going to say their name
because they're so far off that pray for them
even though you don't know who they are.
So anyway, I was thinking,
yeah, I think I'll wear that.
Probably be on stage with her one day.
Meeting starts.
Blah, blah, blah, prayer, blah, blah, blah.
There goes the spirit of Python.
I didn't know Christians could have demons,
but I had a snake.
I laid there in shock.
I went from fantasizing about my worldwide tour
to deliverance on the floor in front of everyone.
Who knows that God has the best sense of humor?
Hallelujah.
I'm somebody because I'm his.
But I'm nobody.
I'm somebody because I'm his,
but I'm nobody.
Amen.
I'm not, believe it or not, I am not addicted to ministry.
I love preaching, but I'm not addicted to...
I told my... I don't know somebody.
I said, I think it was the first week of sabbatical
because I'm actually off sabbatical
talking to you right now.
And I watched because I had some folks
preaching for me the first Sunday.
They have not done it before,
so I wanted to see how they're doing.
They did fantastic.
But as they start doing it, I'm like on fire.
I'm like, ooh, I want to preach.
And it's not about the church.
It's, I love talking about Jesus.
I love the truth.
That's like, I got to tell somebody.
I could never just be a stay-at-home whatever.
I was going to say mom, but my daughter is now grown.
I'm not even a stay-at-home dog mom.
It's like, I have to tell somebody about Jesus
because it's in me. You understand?
But that's not the same thing
as being addicted to a position.
Okay, good. We got that cleared up.
So anyway, Paul, he's talking about how we're nothing
and we need to be okay with that.
You're something, you're special to him.
You're a daughter. You're a son.
But as far as glory, we're nothing.
We're here to bring him the glory.
Hallelujah. Let's keep going.
According to verse 10, according...
No, sorry, nine.
For we are God's fellow workers.
You are God's field.
You are God's building.
According to the grace of God,
which was given to me as a wise master builder,
I have laid the foundation
and another builds on it.
But let each one take heed
how he builds on it.
This is instruction for me.
It's instruction for you.
How are you doing in your construction?
Yeah.
Have you been building on your foundation,
which is Christ?
What do the walls look like?
Let's pay...
What's our construction look like?
Are we looking down going, uh-oh, it was Christ,
but now it's kind of built on
pastor so-and-so who's online.
Now it's kind of starting to look like
deliverance so-and-so who's online
or whatever. I'm just done matter.
We want to make sure that we look down
and go, oh, this is straight up Jesus
because only Jesus can uphold it all the way.
Amen.
And praise God for the different voices
in the body of Christ. Amen.
We all have a job to do.
For no other foundation
can anyone lay
than that which is laid, which is
Jesus Christ.
Anything else is a lie.
It is a thief and a robber.
Now if anyone builds on this foundation
with gold, silver,
precious stones, wood,
hay, straw, each one
's work will become
clear for the
day. This is the day of the Lord
will declare it because
it will be revealed by what?
Fire. And the fire
will test each one's work
of what sort it is. So guess
what's not going to burn that day?
God's word's not going to burn
no. Anything that he
asked us to do that we did
is not going to burn.
Now I know I got some gold in my life
and you know what? I probably have some
straw in there too.
It's always good to say
Lord, where's the straw?
Have I been using straw
to build? And I have.
And if so, I just repent.
Clean that sucker up, prune me Lord.
And he does.
But all of us
we're going to have that day where
there's a fire.
And anything that isn't according
to his wisdom, his way, etc.
it is going to burn.
What did Jesus say
to the church of Laodicea?
He says, I counsel you
to what? Buy from me
gold that has been
refined in the
fire.
Then he talks
about the white garment
which is our robe
of righteousness. The Bible
says that we can defile our garment.
You want to know how to defile your garment?
It's the real offense.
Because offense creates
separation and God's all about unity
and it brings bitterness.
Some of you right now in here
there's a
level of forgiveness that needs to come
into your life.
That you're stuck and you've been
stuck because you're having
a hard time forgiving. You don't understand
the real purpose of it.
God wants to heal you
from that.
Forgiveness is a legal decision.
It's not an emotion.
It's a legality in the spirit realm.
Everything is legal.
And it says, I untether
myself from darkness. When you
forgive, you untether yourself from darkness.
Isn't that incredible?
So on that day
it will be revealed by fire
and the fire will test each one's word
of what sort it is. We're almost done.
Y'all hang in there. I can feel it starting to...
If anyone's work which has been built
on endures, he will receive
a reward. Because Jesus
is all about rewarding himself.
Anything
that's of him is getting a reward because
all of that comes back to him.
We're going to get to cast our
crowns. Any crowns that we get, we get
to give it right back to him. Isn't that awesome?
Because we know when we're truly
his and we surrender, we know it's
all his. He deserves
it all.
He says,
if anyone's work is
burned, he will suffer
loss, but he himself will be
saved, yet so as
through fire.
I don't know about you, but I don't want to get up there
and have barely made it.
I don't want to get up there
and everything I think I've done
is gone.
If anyone defiles
or excuse me, do you not
know that you are the temple of God
and that the spirit of God dwells in you?
If anyone defiles the temple of God,
God will destroy
him for the temple of God is holy
which temple you are.
Let no one deceive himself if
anyone among you seems to be wise
in this age, let him become
a fool that he may become wise.
You can keep reading and I hope
you do, but let me tell you, we've got
preachers or reverends or whatever
they're called who are saying
that abortion is Jesus's gift to the
world.
Y'all haven't heard that?
No.
Well your pastors watch the news, I know
that.
But people believe that now.
They believe God just wants them
happy that love means you're
just happy.
These are the philosophies
of men, yeah?
It sure is the laodicean age.
So 2 Corinthians
13
5
says examine
yourselves
to see that you are still in
the faith. What does it mean?
Faith is always anchored
to Christ. Are you still needing
him? Is he still your requirement?
This is what it's about. Is he still your
requirement? Even after you've been saved
35 years, do you still need him
like you did the first day you got saved?
If you go intellectually
yes, but
it's
okay. Go before
him and say I want
a fresh appetite.
I want to desire you again.
I want to be on fire for you again.
He will
answer you, knock and keep on
knocking, seek and keep on
seeking.
So the laodiceans found themselves
at a place where they no longer needed
to Jesus. Imagine their shock
because they were
a church. And the one
that they were standing for supposedly was
not pleased.
Your faith
like the first song we sang
the enemy's coming for your faith.
And in this age, the age of
ease, the age of AI, which there's good
things with that too, the enemy
is coming for your faith.
He doesn't want you to need Jesus.
He wants to make it so easy, so
fast, so personalized
to you. He wants you to be
a consumer.
Consume, consume, consume,
consume, consume.
Prophet
Brian said that Netflix has done more
to wreck prayer lives than anything else.
Right?
It's the consumer
age. That's what they call it.
He's after your faith.
Hold your faith
precious more than
anything else. Here's my last
little story I really legit am done.
For real.
Billy Graham. Y'all know him?
And I know there have been
controversy on Billy Graham
online. Oh, he was at 33rd
degree Mason. Well, I tell you what,
that Mason brought more people to Jesus Christ
than anybody else. Praise God.
I don't care what he was.
He preached the gospel everywhere he went.
I don't know what Bill and Hillary
are up to, but I know one thing
they heard about Jesus.
I
watched that man preach
salvation at the White House
in front of Nancy Pelosi.
I don't know what she did with it,
but they have come on heard the truth.
Billy Graham
put up with the scrutiny.
Did y'all know that he would leave his wife
sometimes seven months of the year
to tour the world to preach the
gospel? Talk about a man
with a revelation of surrender.
But he was friends with Charles
Templeton. Charles Templeton
was around before he was, and he was
considered potentially to be
the next greatest evangelist. They were
best friends.
You know what happened to Charlie?
He started listening
to doubt.
He started struggling with questions like
if God is good, why is there evil in the world?
What happened in World War II
and the Jewish people? All the different things.
And he slowly talked himself out of Jesus
to the place where he
resigned his position to his church.
He was taken on as an intellectual
at an Ivy League college.
And he berated
listen, he wasn't just satisfied
with leaving God. He wanted
Billy Graham to lose his faith too.
And so he went
after him, trying to cause him
to doubt God and the word
of God. And Billy had
a crisis of faith. Did you know that?
His mama gave him a pep talk
and then he went out in the woods
and he cried out to God and God
spoke to him. And you know what he said?
It's all
about faith.
I just believe.
I don't
have to know everything. I'm here
to tell people of the love of Jesus Christ
and that they can be saved. That's all
I need to know. And he went on
to impact the world tremendously.
Charles Templeton
when he was at the end of his life
on his deathbed
he cried. And you know what he said?
Because he was an atheist.
And he said, I
miss Jesus.
But he
had decided
that Jesus was the greatest
teacher. But he wasn't
the son of God.
He said, I miss
Jesus. You can't know
a great teacher from 2,000 years
ago.
But you can know the son
of God at any time.
He left him.
And I don't sadly have any confidence
that he's in heaven.
I cried and cried and cried
because he gave
up the preciousness of his faith
in order to
have worldly wisdom.
The Laodicean
church
is one that had worldly wisdom
who no longer needed Jesus.
I implore you
tonight
to have a fresh love
in appreciation
not for all your charismatic gifts
or your incredible revelation
or all the things that he's gifted
the church with to do the work.
But a fresh revelation
of gratitude that our souls are saved.
And we have faith
in Jesus Christ.
Amen.